Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-born green card holder and master’s degree candidate at Columbia University, was arrested in March 2025 by agents from the Department of Homeland Security at his home in New York. He was taken to an immigration detention center and later transferred to a facility in Louisiana, over 1,000 miles away. Khalil, who was born in a Syrian refugee camp to Palestinian parents, became a target of the government due to his support for pro-Palestinian protesters during campus demonstrations. These protests were focused on Columbia University’s connections to Israel, including its ties to Israeli academic institutions and companies involved in the conflict in Gaza. The university reportedly contacted the New York Police Department to address the protests, which called for the university to cut those ties. No criminal charges were filed against Khalil, and there was no evidence he had broken any laws. In June 2024, a federal judge ruled that Khalil’s detention was unconstitutional, and he was released on bail after spending 104 days in custody. During that time, he missed the birth of his son. The decision came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that Khalil’s continued presence in the U.S. would have “adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio sought Khalil’s deportation under a legal provision from the McCarthy era, a period in the 1950s marked by heightened suspicion of perceived communist influence. Despite his release, the Trump administration has continued to pursue his removal from the country. In his memoir, No Land to Stand On, Khalil describes his detention experience as “Kafkaesque,” a term referencing the surreal and confusing nature of the situation. He criticizes what he calls the “creeping authoritarianism” of the Trump administration and the harshness of its immigration policies. Khalil notes that many of his fellow detainees, from various countries, faced long periods of detention due to an unclear and slow legal system. He also highlights the role of private companies that run detention centers, arguing that the profit motive can lead to prolonged detention, as the number of occupied beds directly affects revenue. This, he says, may explain why some immigration authorities appeal successful asylum cases, unnecessarily extending the detention of individuals. At Columbia University, Khalil criticizes the influence of private corporations on public institutions. He points out that the university’s board of trustees is largely composed of individuals from industries like finance, real estate, and weapons manufacturing. He describes the university as “a real estate empire with a campus attached.” Khalil argues that when students protested the university’s links to Israel, the administration treated the issue as a crisis to be controlled rather than a legitimate grievance. Pro-Palestinian groups on campus, including reading circles, bake sales, and support for anti-Zionist Jewish activists, were labeled as an antisemitic movement. Khalil notes that the university’s concerns about student safety were, at least in part, insincere, as pro-Israel students were allowed to film and harass pro-Palestinian groups at events, while pro-Palestinian gatherings were often deemed security risks.